Monday, April 14, 2014

Michael
Peppard, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology at Fordham, got to flex his
Coptic papyrologist expertise on national television this past weekend in an
interview about on PBS’ NewsHour
Weekend.

Michael Peppard on PBS NewsHour Weekend.

The segment, which aired on April 13, centered around a faded fragment of papyrus
known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.” Unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School
historian in 2012, it was then tested by scientists who concluded
in an April 10 journal article that the ink and papyrus are very likely
ancient, and not a modern forgery.

Peppard told host Hari Sreenivasan that scholars, such
as himself, that study early Christianity are “still kind of in this middle
ground of mysteriousness about the text.

“That being said, some of the critics on the forgery side
argue that there is bad grammar, that there are other indicators, bad
penmanship and that kind of stuff. But papyrologists — that is nerds like us
that study ancient papyri — we see bad handwriting all the time. The apostle
Paul himself in the New Testament talks about his bad handwriting. So
handwriting it’s a techne in Greek,
it’s a skill, it’s acquired.”

Sreenivasan also asked Peppard what the religious
ramifications are if Jesus did have a wife.

“… this papyrus gives us another window into what were some
live debates in early Christianity. Debates such as: is procreation a vehicle
for holiness or is celibacy — voluntary celibacy– a vehicle for holiness. A
second debate that it clearly was engaging was the worthiness of women as
disciples, especially Mary the mother and Mary Magdalen, two of the main figures
that were discussed,” Peppard said.

In this segment,
Greer says historical context should always be taken into consideration in the
debate over equal pay.

“We constantly throw around that .77-to-a-dollar [figure],
but we do also know that there is a very real racial divide within this. If
white women are making .77 on the dollar, we know that black and Latina women
are making much less than that,” she said.